World Premiere Review!Lindemann Musicbook SOURCE And POWER 500Beautify, simplify, electrify... may the SOURCE be with you.Review By Clive Meakins

The old days are gone... well,
almost. How many of us still have piles of audio equipment connected via cable
spaghetti? Is it crazy to dream of simplifying Hi-Fi systems into a very few
items of equipment? Doesn't such simplicity come at the expense of quality?
There are of course economies in reducing the Hi-Fi box count; chassis costs are
high so fewer of these should result in a major saving. Reducing the number of
power supplies is beneficial too as is directly connecting circuits internally
which can cut the costs associated with providing external connectivity. Sounds
simple doesn't it? It's not that easy if you're aiming at great sound quality.
Here I take a look at and listen to a very impressive reductionist approach.

A cynical or lazy approach to the reduction of Hi-Fi boxes
would be to buy-in circuit boards to assemble into a one-box or two-box audio
system. This will probably result in a compact and convenient system that is
decidedly Mid-Fi. There can be good reasons to buy-in carefully selected parts
but there is also a lot of thoughtful design needed to implement a successful
and worthy product. Enter Lindemann Audio. In this review I am covering the
Lindemann Musicbook SOURCE and Musicbook POWER 500.

The SOURCE is a very modern
digital streamer and the POWER 500 is an equally modern class D power amplifier.
These two sleek and slender Lindemann Musicbook products are housed in matching
bright aluminium chassis machined from solid aluminium billet. The SOURCE comes
with a beautifully clear OLED display, which is much clearer than my photographs
suggest. The quality of the chassis is very good indeed and would be perfectly
in place with significantly more expensive products.

What is in the SOURCE streamer? It is a very flexible piece of
kit. It can stream from Qobuz, TIDAL, Deezer, Hi-Res Audio, with native Spotify
and Amazon HD due shortly. In the meantime, "non-native streaming" can be
achieved via Bluetooth. For the ROONers out there it's Roon Ready too. Internet
radio and podcasts are also included. You can play files  these being your
downloads and rips - via a USB connection or from a music server (NAS). You can
even connect a USB CD drive to enable the playing of CDs. This is a very
comprehensive digital streamer but there's more! There is even an MM phono stage
derived from the well-renowned Lindemann Limetree Phono, this is wonderful for
luddites such as myself.

If all the source options aren't sufficient there are 2
additional analogue inputs. The SOURCE also includes coax and optical digital
inputs with USB being purely for storage, USB is deliberately not available as a
digital input. There's also a DAC, Pre-amp and a headphone amplifier; yes, all
of this is one chassis. It's a small and beautifully formed chassis too. Outputs
available as are both balanced XLR and single-end RCA. Quite how so much kit has
been squeezed in the diminutive chassis defeats me, it's a work of wonder. The
SOURCE connects to the internet either via Wi-Fi or Ethernet and as already
mentioned there is Bluetooth connectivity too.

The Musicbook POWER 500 is more straightforward as a power
amplifier. There is the usual stereo mode plus there's vertical bi-amp mode with
adjustable gain for bass matching and mono bi-amp mode too, so even POWER 500
amplifier has sophisticated features. The POWER 500 is good for 250 Watts per channel
into 4 Ohms. There is also POWER 1000 available with 500 Watts on tap.

Getting Into The Technical DetailsSkip the below section if you
don't want the detail!

Lindemann Musicbook SOURCE
Streamer, Digital and Wireless InputsThe streamer incorporated into the SOURCE can play all the
usual lossless and lossy formats up to 24 bits and 384 kHz, playback is gapless.
Ethernet connection to your broadband router usually the best option providing
you can easily run a cable to your router. Smart plugs to run Ethernet protocol
over your mains wiring is an option though personally, I prefer to not pollute
my mains with unnecessary noise. Wi-Fi connectivity is simple enough to setup as
WPS (push to connect) is supported, there are a pair of aerials which I found
facilitated good wireless reception.

The SOURCE will stream from TIDAL, Qobuz, Deezer, Hi-Res Audio,
plus Spotify with internet radio and podcasts also being on offer. The SOURCE is
"Roon Ready" so it will be automatically discovered by Roon and can
then be used for Roon playback. Spotify at the time of writing was only
available via Bluetooth (Spotify Connect), it works well enough but of course,
you're limited in terms of needing to place your Bluetooth device (likely a
phone) fairly close to the SOURCE. Spotify along with Amazon HD are both due to
become natively supported in the way that TIDAL, Qobuz and others are already.
The SOURCE supports network and USB updates so when it's time to update the
firmware to support new streaming services this should be a painless procedure.

There are S/PDIF inputs in the form of RCA coax and TosLink optical;
connecting a TV via optical is probably something many purchasers will want to
do. Aside from connecting storage, there is no USB input, this is deliberate for
quality reasons. I have sympathy with this as I've found USB to give variable
results. USB works well enough for most people but to get the best from it can
take effort to ensure that noise doesn't enter the rest of the audio chain.
Norbert Lindemann feels that USB wasn't designed for real-time audio data and
that because power and data lines are encapsulated within the same cable shield
this results in noise & coupling issues. This is probably the reason why
changing sources and USB cables can result in differing sound quality.

I used TIDAL, Qobuz and Spotify streaming services with the
SOURCE. I also played some of my 1000+ albums (FLAC) I have stored on a 1TB
Samsung T5 SSD. Files played via USB is not Lindemann's preference as the
primary method of playback though it works very well. The Lindemann reticence
for direct USB files playback is due a to lack of album art being available when
searching; art is shown when files (tracks) are being played though sometimes
artwork can be delayed if you have a lot of files. I have over 20,000 tracks so
it's a lot of scanning for the SOURCE to perform; I had art delayed a few times
but it wasn't something that bothered me.

The Lindemann preferred method for files playback is for the
SOURCE to access files from Network Attached Storage (NAS). The NAS device
connects to your router, it answers requests for music files. The NAS also does
the work of indexing and accessing artwork which results in art being available
when searching from the app used to control the SOURCE. The NAS needs to run a
UPnP / DLNA server, which most do. The suggested software is Twonky. A couple of
years ago the company offering Twonky ceased development; the software is
however still available. Other DLNA servers will be just fine, Plex being a
fairly obvious alternative to Twonky. DLNA is a ubiquitous standard so there's
no problem substituting Twonky with other software. I expect Lindemann will have
fresh recommendations shortly. I should add that the chances are that Twonky
will continue in useful service to many years to come  I'm certainly happy to
use it.

Given that I hadn't been using a dedicated NAS but I wanted to
see full artwork displayed in searches I installed Twonky on my fanless media PC
running Windows 10. This was painless. I had originally used Window Media
Streaming (DLNA) which worked well enough except for one well-known Windows
foible. Windows streams album tracks in alphabetical order; it ignores the track
number specified within the music tags. There is a workaround which involves
using a tagging program to add track numbers to the title tag; this only took me
about 10 minutes to carry out with the excellent MP3Tag software but I
understand why Lindemann prefer more specialist DLNA server software such as
Twonky. Note to self... send a donation to Mp3Tag.de. The complexity due to DLNA
isn't hard to get your head around if you are IT literate but in reality, anyone
starting out without a big music collection should simply subscribe to a
streaming service.

Streaming services and local files are both very easy to use
so decide on your preference or use both, which is what I do. A USB connected
DVD/CD drive will play music via the SOURCE through having splashed out on a
streamer  spinning CDs are unlikely to be your main source of music  however, it's good to have this option available for when someone pops round
with a CD.

Streamer Processing TechnologyNorbert Lindemann has notched up over 30 years in the
industry, his company was formed in 1993, Norbert has over 20 years of digital
experience. You can be sure the Lindemann philosophy is very deliberate and well
thought through; that's what I concluded from my conversation with Norbert. I asked about the benefits of a single box
streamer/DAC/preamp. The answer was that a couple of the benefits are due to
simpler interfaces between the various internal circuits plus a single box
brings the benefit of a common ground plane.

Further probing revealed comments about the importance of the
quality of DAC chip, clock chip, jitter performance, board layout and power
supply quality. Norbert Lindemann described how complex jitter can be; there are
marketing materials suggesting very low jitter specifications for clocks but
many of these specify jitter above 12 kHz. This avoids having to reveal what
jitter performance is below 12 kHz, where it can increase by well over 100 times
 this is in the audio range so it's particularly important.

In a streamer, both the digital signal and master-clock are
generated by the streaming processor. Cleaning the clock and re-sampling the
data with a very precise clock is a vital ingredient. The master-clock in the
SOURCE is re-clocked synchronously via a PLL with a Femto reference. MEMS clocks
are used by Lindemann as they don't suffer from microphony or temperature drift
and ageing. An ultra-low noise power supply results in the clock giving
excellent jitter performance measured down to 10Hz. The clock is then used to
re-sample the data with 32-bit precision in PCM or DSD as per user selection in
the Lindemann app.

DACHaving gone full circle from integrated CD players to CD
transport + DAC, and then computers/streamers connected to DACs it's liberating
to get away from complexity by running a single-box fully-functional streamer.
Add-ons I've previously used such as re-clockers, noise filters, isolated power
supplies, special cables etc all introduce extra complexity to multi-box
approaches. There is, of course, much to get right with any streamer-DAC design
but to have it all within a single box simplifies some issues. A single box
removes the temptation to try those add-on gizmos to improve sound quality. I've
found "add-on gizmos" to work in multi-device setups but a very well
implemented single box must surely have great potential. It's much neater too.

Lindemann specialize in re-sampling, they've been working on
this for 20 years. In the case of the SOURCE, they use an AK4137 to re-sample
using 32-bit resolution. This feeds two AK4493 DACs configured in dual
differential mono mode  essentially working in balanced mode. The DACs are
capable of 768 kHz/32-bit and DSD 512. On playback, you have the option to
select traditional PCM or DSD playback. These ingredients are some of the best
available.

At this point, I'm better quoting Norbert Lindemann directly
rather than attempting to paraphrase.

"In regular DAC chips, the PCM signal is over-sampled
and then transferred into a modulation signal by a system which is called
"Delta-Sigma-Converter". The output of this system is very close to a
DSD-signal. DSD is nothing else but the signal in front of the output interface
in most DAC chips! We are using the DACs from AKM in Japan which allow for
direct DSD in these chips. You can say we are de-constructing the DAC by
splitting it into DSD re-sampling in the SRC and conversion into an analogue
signal inside the DAC chip. Advantage: the DSP of the DAC chip is by-passed. The
DAC does not have disturbance effects caused by RF signals on-chip. It is
completely quiet. Further: the DSD signal is at about 12 MHz. This means the
distance in frequency between the audio signal and modulation carrier is very
big. So, in playback, the analogue filtering can be placed at 100 kHz. Given a
low noise supply, this concept yields a high potential for clean audio. Besides
this, the new AK4493 DAC chip is the best performing DAC in terms of low-level
resolution and distortion performance so far. I really like it for its
musicality."

Phono StageA moving-magnet (MM) phono stage within a streamer is almost an oxymoron. Many will
embrace streaming and abandon all antiquated sources. I'm still very attached to
my vinyl collection and two turntables plus ultrasonic record cleaning
paraphernalia. I'm therefore pleased that Norbert Lindemann decided to include
his well-regarded phono stage. It's an MM version; I suspect a very high gain MC
phono stage could have been too much of a challenge in terms of noise within
such a compact and tightly packed chassis. The phono stage offers a typical
47kOhms / 150pF input. Gain can be set via the app to one of three levels so
it'll suit any MM-level cartridge and can even be used with high-output MC
cartridges.

Preamplifier, Analogue Inputs, And Headphone
AmplifierThe preamp section within the SOURCE is yet another high
specification element. The volume control network uses the very highly regarded
MUSES 72320 device. There's been no skimping on costs, the best components are
employed throughout the SOURCE. The preamp offers both unbalanced RCA and balanced
XLR
outputs. Max output at the RCA jacks is 2.5V with output impedance being 100 Ohms,
the XLRs run to 5V and 20 Ohms. The volume control operates across 100 steps
with the first 21 being in 2dB increments, the next 40 are in 1dB steps with the
final steps being in 0.5dB increments. There is also a balance control operating
+/-6dB in 1dB steps.

There is a well-crafted volume control wheel on the top
surface of the SOURCE, this also doubles as an input selector and mute function
when pushed rather than turned.

Gain can be set for each input via the app. Headphones between
16 Ohms and 200 Ohms are catered for, the gain is switchable. There is an optional remote control available for the SOURCE,
it looks beautifully made what I've seen but I didn't get to try it. The app is
what you really need.

AppAndroid and iOS are both supported by the Lindemann control
app. This is the app used for their full range of Lindemann streamers of which
the SOURCE is at the top of the pile. Such an app is crucial to the success of a
streamer. It has to be easy to use or the streamer would be frustrating to use.

I initially used the app with two Android phones and an iPhone
8. It worked well when selecting and playing music. I found the volume control
slider a bit hit and miss sometimes, either I maybe missed the slider with my
finger or somehow it didn't respond as quickly as I'd expected. It was ok but
not as good as I'd hoped so I tried an iPad. The larger screen in landscape mode
was so much better for searching, this was a real boon. I found the volume
control was very responsive indeed  I have no qualms here at all. I recommend
using a tablet. A phone will work but honestly, you really want to use a tablet.

The app is where it all happens. You can set the naming of the
inputs, choose between 3 gain levels for each analogue input, 2 levels for
headphones, set display brightness, enter your streaming service login
credentials, access radio stations. Searching for and playing music is all via
the app. The app automatically finds your UPnP / DLNA files in your local
network, should you be using a NAS.

Lindemann Musicbook POWER 500Within the Musicbook series there are options for POWER 500
and POWER 1000 amplifiers. The POWER 500 is capable of 250 Watts into 4 Ohms per
channel, two channels, which is easily sufficient for most people's needs. The POWER 1000 offers double
the power at 500W per channel, should you need it. The POWER 500 and 1000 both provide for bi-amp'ing. For bi-amp'ing,
you, of course, require a pair of amplifiers. With vertical bi-amp'ing, you're
blessed with the option to decrease or increase gain to your bass drivers so you
have the option to tailor the response of your speakers to your room. The POWER
500 and POWER 1000 have balanced inputs and not surprisingly they are ideal
partners for the SOURCE.

The amplifiers have an input impedance of 150kOhms, which is
admirably high for a solid-state amplifier. The POWER amplifiers are based
around Hypex NCore modules with a custom J-FET input buffer and power supply. Rather than designing a power amplifier from the ground-up
it's a smart move to use the NCore modules as they are excellent designs.
Norbert Lindemann has brought his own flavor to these amplifiers, which is as
it should be.

The POWER takes a couple of seconds to wake up when music is
first played, it will go to sleep when music isn't playing, this is after 1.5
hours so that's not an inconvenience, indeed it's a benefit. There are LED indicators on the front panel to indicate the
amplifier is on, these denote DC warning, over-temperature warning, over current
warning. Not once did I see a warning LED light-up other than quite correctly
during the power-up sequence.

Do The Lindemann Musicbooks Sound As Good As They
Look?This review was spawned from my purchasing a Lindemann
Limetree Bridge about 9 months ago. The BRIDGE is a streamer which outputs
S/PDIF so it needs a DAC to work with. There is also the Limetree Network which
incorporates a DAC. The Limetree BRIDGE greatly impressed me; after some months
and discussions with Christopher Delhaes at Lindemann, the idea for this review
developed. Initially, it was to be a review of the SOURCE but after an initial
acquaintance, I decided it would make sense to include the matching POWER 500.

Given that the SOURCE offers so much functionality in a very neat and diminutive
package, it was a natural step to complete the electronics side of the system
with the power amp. Having gone down this route I can report it was a good move.
The SOURCE and the POWER 500 make huge sense as individual products but should
you lust after one, I'd be very surprised if you didn't want to complete the
matching set.

The Musicbooks arrived in excellent and very well-padded
packaging. Being milled from solid billets of aluminum the chassis-work is
substantial. The finish is bright and very attractive. I found the finish to be
flawless.

It was good to discover the app I was using to communicate
with the Limetree BRIDGE is the very same app used with the Musicbook SOURCE.
Even better was that I could use the app to operate with both BRIDGE and SOURCE
from the same phone or tablet. For controlling the SOURCE I recommend using a
tablet, as previously mentioned I found the volume control to be much more
responsive on a tablet than I did via a phone. I'm not sure what the volume
control issue was on my phones, possibly it was due to screen size. A tablet
makes the most sense anyway, landscape mode displays searches on the left and
the album playing the right, it's ideal.

The control app is crucial for any streamer and the Lindemann
app doesn't disappoint. Device settings (naming, gain, display brightness),
streaming credentials/searching, volume, balance, input selection, radio and
podcasts are all integrated within the app and are simple to use.
Computer-hosted web streaming apps from TIDAL, Qobuz etc have more richly
functional search and recommendations options; however, the simpler in-app
Lindemann search works well, allowing searches by artist, album or tracks plus
many other options.

I used the Musicbooks in two systems or more accurately with
two sets of speakers in two rooms. The Musicbooks ARE most of the system when I
think about it. Just add speakers and you're done. My Bastanis Sagamatha Duo
open baffle speakers at 102dB sensitivity and a 14 Ohm load are not a typical
mate for the POWER 500 but why not? The other speakers were the MarkAudio-SOTA
Viotti Tower at 88dB/W/m sensitivity and 6 Ohms these are likely to be a more
typical match for the POWER 500 but there's no reason to think even the Bastanis
would be a mismatch... they weren't. I'd expect with a very well sorted Class D
amplifier even with 102dB sensitivity speakers to betray zero evidence of hum,
the POWER 500 passed this test in complete silence. That was a promising start.

Before commencing the writing part of this review, I spent
over two months with the SOURCE streamer and six weeks with the POWER 500. Here's
a quick characterization for the two units together and individually. What I
hear is a sound that provides a wide-range; nothing is missing from the
extremities. Dynamics are very strong when the source material demands this.
Resolution is high, it's not an artificial juiced-up treble giving this
impression, it's real. Separation of instruments and vocals is excellent;
unusually so.

I'll dig into three specific tracks to try to put into words
what it is that I find particularly special about the Lindemanns. Yes, they are
neutral sounding  I mean that as a complement  there's no euphony which
would result in the favoring of particular genres or instruments. An impressive
aspect I noticed, and I found this with the baby of the Lindemann range too (the
BRIDGE), it was the totally excellent instrumental and vocal separation. This
provides a great natural clarity which so often is missing from many systems.
The separation I'm talking about is especially noticeable when music becomes
highly complex and "full-on" but it can be beneficial with individual
instruments and vocals too.

I have a few versions of "Adagio for Strings", listening to the
Barber version (and others) I frequently struggle at around five to six
minutes into the score when the strings are being worked hard. Many systems turn
this section into a confused buzzing sensation. If I were listening via a
single-end amplifier I'd be accusing it of Intermodulation Distortion (IMD) 
where differing frequencies in effect interfere with each other. Google it if
you want a fuller and much more accurate definition! I find this IMD effect to
happen with a lot of equipment. I'm NOT saying it is IMD, it's just that it has
that sort of character. I find a Raspberry Pi as a digital source can sound this
way.

I realize the digits-are-digits supporters will say this isn't possible but
this is what I hear. Even digital sources have to be well designed. Maybe
vibration of critical clock circuitry is a contributory factor. The point is
that the Lindemann equipment I've heard does not remotely suffer blurring of
complex pieces of music. I particularly notice this with classical music and
since I've been using Lindemann equipment I found myself listening to far more
classical music that had been typical for myself. I've been enthralled by music
which didn't make much sense to me previously; now that music makes musical
sense. This is fundamental for musical appreciation.

I played the Nils Lofgren live track "Keith Don't Go", a track
that's been used and abused at many a high-fidelity audio shows. It's an amazing demo track for
sure. This is a simple, uncluttered recording. When Nils sings "message to
millions", on most systems I lose a little clarity such that
"millions" sounds more like "zillions". With the Lindemanns,
I heard perfect clarity. It's a small thing which I'd thought was due to the
recording but now I know for sure it isn't. It's not a big deal for this
particular track but carry this effect over to many other tracks  it becomes
significant.

Another hi-fi clich้ is Jazz At The Pawnshop  another
great recording. I must admit I've not been the greatest fan of the vibraphone
used on this recording  or any recording. Truly this was the first time I
enjoyed the recorded sound of the vibraphone being played. So often it can sound
"plinky-plinky" but again with the Lindemanns I enjoyed what I heard. The
instrument made so much musical sense whereas generally on most systems I can't
take the vibraphone seriously.

Over the auditioning period I put the SOURCE up against
several computer-based players as well as a Pi, another single-board computer
and also the Lindemann Limetree BRIDGE, these were fed into DACs costing 1000 to
2000. The only setup that got to being in the same league as the
SOURCE was the Limetree BRIDGE into a Chord Qutest DAC powered from a SuperCap-based
power supply. Even so, I preferred the SOURCE. It's admittedly difficult to
separate all the variables as the SOURCE includes a preamplifier, yet the SOURCE was a
step upward in sound quality versus this second best configuration.

People buying a highly functional streamer may not have a
record deck or if they do it may well be a secondary source. Given the exemplary
performance of the digital streamer, it's not so easy to make a good case for a
vinyl setup to sit beside it. I am however for good or bad, wedded to my pair of
record decks and historical vinyl collection. Vinyl brings me great joy in
listening and use but I recognize that some of these emotions stem from my long
history with the medium.

Given my love of vinyl, I was very interested to try out the
integral MM phono stage. The phono stage performs very well, it usefully has the
option to set its gain set to any of three levels from within the app. I used my
Trans-Fi Salvation deck with London Reference cartridge, this is quite a
high-end setup, the cartridge alone costs close to the price of SOURCE streamer.
I got great results with the SOURCE phono stage. Again, there was no noise
(hum), the sound was very balanced and stood comparison with the digital side.
Most sane people won't be running multi-thousand dollar cartridges into a very
accomplished streamer but here I am doing just that. Even more rare is that I
was using an MM level cartridge  in effect it's a Decca.

Most expensive
cartridges out there are MC types, those with such MC-based vinyl setups will
need either a step device or would use a dedicated MC phono stage into one of
the SOURCE analogue inputs. I wanted to compare some of the phono stages I had
to hand. The best-matched phono stage for my London Reference cartridge gave me
just a little more presence and authority. The difference was only noticeable on
really punishing bass with tracks such as Kraftwerk "The Man-Machine". I'm
pushing my testing here to the limit, searching for fine differences.

When
playing 78s on my Garrard 301 with my Ortofon 2M Mono SE the phono stage
embedded within in the SOURCE is waaay better than I need! Playing microgroove
with my London Reference the quality was still very good indeed. Matching a
phono stage to a cartridge is a personal thing. I suggest you try the embedded
phono stage, if you have a mid-range deck with MM cartridge or high output MC
the chances are high that it'll be perfect. If you still want to optimize your
deck with a specific phono stage you can spend $3000 or whatever on an external
phono stage to achieve your desired result.

I could write about a lot more examples describing the sheer
quality and musicality I experienced with the Musicbooks but hopefully, the
examples I have used convey some important aspects.

Concluding ThoughtsWhilst the Lindemann Musicbook products are not at the budget
end of the market, they aren't priced to exclude people who value quality both
in terms of sound and style. Unless you are going for Mega-HiFi you really don't
need to look elsewhere. For sonics alone, the Musicbook products give most
products on the market very stiff competition. This includes systems assembled
from best-of-breed components. The Lindemann products leave me pondering where I
focus next as a reviewer due to the Musicbook products being
"end-game" for most people. They are more than good enough for most
people and so darned musical in a genuine high-resolution manner - without
artifice.

The Lindemann Musicbook SOURCE and POWER 500 do not do
euphony, they instead provide playback which is highly accurate to the
recording. Please don't "read between the lines" thinking that I'm saying
the sound is clinical  I'm not and it isn't. The digital conversion,
re-sampling and preamp sections of the SOURCE are clearly very well designed
with much experience being in-play here. The POWER 500 and 1000 are based on the
excellent HyexNcore Class D amplifiers which are possibly the best measuring and
most accurate and "straight-wire-gain" amplifiers on the market.
Lindemann add flavor to the Ncore via their own input buffer. I compared the
POWER 500 with another Class D amp I had to hand, as well as a couple of Class
A/B. The other Class D came closest, matching the POWER 500 in the bass but not
achieving the same level of transparency in the mid and treble nor in dynamics.
So that's a great result for the POWER 500.

At 3280 for the SOURCE and 2480 for the POWER 500,
these Lindemann products are not inexpensive but they aren't crazy money either.
Ignore for a minute that their sound quality is superb, let's look at value. The
aluminum chassis is beautifully made, proportions are very pleasing and sizing
is amazingly compact. It's hard to imagine a setting in which they wouldn't look
anything less than stunning. Let's now contrast a traditional system-building
approach with similar functionality to the SOURCE:

We can debate over some details of the list above but it's
clear the 3280 SOURCE offers good value for money versus a system-building
approach. In my view the SOURCE will significantly out-perform many
traditionally assembled components. Then we have the web of cables and plethora
of boxes scattered across your HiFi rack, frankly looking a mess and causing
strife at home. The argument is made. The SOURCE is the conclusive winner.
Whilst you're at it buy the excellent physically and sonically matching POWER
500 or 1000. Just do it!

The sound from these Musicbooks are clean, open, transparent, and
highly musical. Add to this the value they offer  it's a slam dunk!